Prepaid subscriptions enable customers to pay upfront for multiple orders and receive their products on scheduled dates according to the delivery frequency set in the subscription plan. Unlike a standard subscription where each delivery is billed separately, a prepaid subscription bundles multiple deliveries into a single upfront charge.
Benefits of offering prepaid subscriptions
Improve retention by offering discounted pricing on prepaid plans. For example, against a $10 monthly subscription, you can offer a 3-month prepaid plan for $25 and a 6-month prepaid plan for $50, which encourages customers to commit to longer cycles at a lower monthly cost.
Your customers can gift subscriptions to friends and family. Gift subscriptions are paid upfront in full and expire automatically after a set number of orders.
Prepaid subscriptions increase conversion rates and customer lifetime value (LTV) by securing longer commitments from your customers upfront.
Your customers can pause, resume, or skip upcoming orders, giving them full control over the subscription schedule.
Setting up prepaid subscriptions
Navigate to Loop admin > Acquire > Selling plans, then click Create selling plan.
Enter the selling plan name and check the "Is this a prepaid selling plan?" checkbox.
Set the frequency for how often orders are charged and delivered, then enable the Auto-renew subscription checkbox if you want the subscription to bill automatically for the next cycle.
Note: If Auto-renew subscription is disabled, the subscription is marked as expired once all deliveries in the cycle are completed.
You can set the discount at each frequency level by selecting Fixed amount, Percentage, or Price as the discount type.
Save the selling plan group. Learn more: Creating selling plans.
Click Add products, then map products to the selling plan.
The new selling plan appears on the listing page with a prepaid badge next to its name.
To customize the texts shown for prepaid subscriptions, navigate to Loop admin > Customer portal > Themes > Texts.
To configure the shipping charges related to Prepaid subscriptions navigate to Loop admin > Settings > General > Address and shipping settings > Prepaid subscriptions shipping charge.
Do not charge shipping: All recurring deliveries will be placed with zero shipping charge.
Charge shipping but only on renewals: Shipping rate will be charged as configured on the subscription during the cycle renewal period.
Charge shipping on all deliveries: Shipping rate will be charged as configured on the subscription.
Prepaid subscription experience
Let's understand the complete prepaid journey with example shown below.
Storefront
When your customers choose a prepaid product on the storefront, they see the frequency options and discounts you configured in the selling plan.
For example, say a product costs $100 and the selling plan has a $30 discount set as Fixed amount. If your customer selects "Pay every 3 months, Deliver every month" they pay for 3 deliveries upfront, so the base amount is $100 × 3 = $300. After the $30 discount, the cycle total comes to $270, which works out to $90 per delivery.
Admin portal
After checkout, the prepaid subscription appears in the admin portal. From there, you can view all the details and take any required actions.
Prepaid credits represent the customer's remaining balance from their upfront payment, which decreases with each delivery order.
Click the View transaction link to see the complete history of credit transactions.
Note: Only the store owner can see and use the Adjust credits button. Users with other roles do not have permission to adjust credits.
Customer portal
Your customers can view and manage their prepaid subscriptions from the customer portal. The portal shows prepaid-specific details like the cycle price, next order credit usage, and credit transaction history.
Cycle price display:
You can choose how the subscription price appears in the customer portal. The price can show either the total prepaid cycle price (for example, $270.00 for 3 deliveries) or the per-delivery price (for example, $90.00 per delivery). This setting applies to both the subscription listing page and the subscription details page.
Note: The total cycle price reflects the current product prices multiplied by the number of orders remaining in the cycle, so it can be inaccurate if products or prices are modified after the subscription starts.
To leverage this setting navigate to Customer portal > Preferences > Prepaid subscription price texts
Next order details:
On the subscription details page, the next order section shows the customer's available prepaid credit balance and how much of it will be used for the next order.
For example, if the customer has $180.00 in prepaid credits and the next order is $90.00, the portal shows: "You have $180.00 in prepaid credits. We will use $90.00 to place the order."
If the available credits don't fully cover the next order (for example, after a manual credit adjustment or product price change), the remaining amount is charged to the customer's saved payment method.
Here are the possible cases for next charges based on:
Subscription state: Auto-renewing/ Expiring/ Marked for cancellation
Order number: Mid-cycle/ Cycle renewal order
Prepaid credits available: Sufficient/ Insufficient, requires charge/ Zero, requires charge
Subscription state | When | Prepaid credits available | Default |
Auto-renewing | Mid-cycle | Sufficient | You have $300.00 in prepaid credits. We will use $100.00 to place the order. |
Auto-renewing | Mid-cycle | Insufficient, requires charge | You have $50.00 in prepaid credits. We will use all $50.00 and charge the remaining $50.00 to your payment method for placing the order. |
Auto-renewing | Mid-cycle | Zero, requires charge | We will charge $100.00 to your payment method for placing the order. |
Auto-renewing | Cycle renewal | Sufficient | You have $300.00 in prepaid credits. We will use $100.00 to place the order. |
Auto-renewing | Cycle renewal | Insuffiicient, requires charge | You have $50.00 in prepaid credits. We will use all $50.00 and charge the remaining $250.00 to your payment method for the next cycle. |
Auto-renewing | Cycle renewal | Zero, requires charge | We will charge $300.00 to your payment method for the next cycle. |
Expiring/ Marked for cancellation | Mid-cycle | Sufficient | You have $300.00 in prepaid credits and 3 orders remaining. We will use $100.00 to place the order. |
Expiring/ Marked for cancellation | Mid-cycle | Insuffiicient, requires charge | You have $50.00 in prepaid credits and 3 orders remaining. We will use all $50.00 and charge the remaining $50.00 to your payment method for placing the order. |
Expiring/ Marked for cancellation | Mid-cycle | Zero, requires charge | You have 3 orders remaining. We will charge $100.00 to your payment method for placing the order. |
Expiring | Cycle renewal | Sufficient | You have $300.00 in prepaid credits and 3 orders remaining. We will use $100.00 to place the order. |
Expiring | Cycle renewal | Insuffiicient, requires charge | You have $50.00 in prepaid credits and 3 orders remaining. We will use all $50.00 and charge the remaining $250.00 to your payment method for the next cycle. |
Expiring | Cycle renewal | Zero, requires charge | You have 3 orders remaining. We will charge $300.00 to your payment method for the next cycle. |
Cancellation flow
For prepaid subscriptions, you can configure a dedicated cancellation preference that controls what happens when a customer cancels mid-cycle. To access it, navigate to Loop admin > Retain > Cancellation flows > Preferences > Prepaid subscription cancellation.
Setting | Description |
Mark for cancellation. This option cancels the subscription after last order is placed in the on-going cycle. | When this option is selected, if a subscriber cancels during an ongoing prepaid cycle, the subscription will be marked for cancellation and will only be terminated once all scheduled orders for the current cycle are fulfilled. |
Allow customers to cancel their subscription immediately. | This option if enabled, will allow the subscriber to cancel the subscription immediately in case of the prepaid subscription. |
Note: If subscription is cancelled immediately, admin will need to initiate the refund for remaining balance manually from Shopify.
Considerations
Keep the following in mind when using checkout links:
Prepaid subscriptions cannot be created manually via the customer portal or the admin portal.
Fixed amount discount codes are only supported on checkout orders.
Partial billing is not supported for prepaid subscriptions. For such cases, the 'No item available' inventory setting will be applied.
Prepaid selling plans don’t support changing discounts after a set number of orders, and mapping of collections. Selling plans, once configured as prepaid, cannot be changed to standard selling plans and vice versa.
Bundles are not supported for prepaid subscriptions.
Quick actions are not supported for prepaid subscriptions.
Merging of multiple prepaid subscriptions is not supported.
Editing of subscription plans is not supported on prepaid subscriptions including editing via subscription details page on admin portal, customer portal.
The delivery method cannot be changed for prepaid subscriptions after creation.
API Hub currently supports prepaid subscriptions on read endpoints.
Support for subscription shipping profiles is not available as of now.
Need help?
No worries - we're here for you!
If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to email us at [email protected] or chat with us using the support beacon at the bottom right of your screen.
Regards,
Loop subscriptions team 🙂